Persecution And The Art Of Writing

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Persecution And The Art Of Writing

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 Persecution And The Art
Of Writing

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.
 TRANSLATIONS

FROM

OVID'S EPISTLES.
 PREFACE

TO

THE TRANSLATION

OF

OVID'S EPISTLES. [2]

The Life of Ovid being already written in our language, before the
translation of his Metamorphoses, I will not presume so far upon
myself, to think I can add any thing to Mr Sandys his undertaking.[3]
The English reader may there be satisfied, that he flourished in the
reign of Augustus Cæsar; that he was extracted from an ancient
family of Roman knights; that he was born to the inheritance of a
splendid fortune;[4] that he was designed to the study of the law,
and had made considerable progress in it, before he quitted that
profession, for this of poetry, to which he was more naturally
formed. The cause of his banishment is unknown; because he was
himself unwilling further to provoke the emperor, by ascribing it to
any other reason than what was pretended by Augustus, which was,
the lasciviousness of his Elegies, and his Art of Love.[5] It is true,
they are not to be excused in the severity of manners, as being able
to corrupt a larger empire, if there were any, than that of Rome; yet
this may be said in behalf of Ovid, that no man has ever treated the
passion of love with so much delicacy of thought, and of expression,
or searched into the nature of it more philosophically than he. And
the emperor, who condemned him, had as little reason as another
man to punish that fault with so much severity, if at least he were
the author of a certain epigram, which is ascribed to him, relating to
the cause of the first civil war betwixt himself and Mark Antony the
triumvir, which is more fulsome than any passage I have met with in
our poet.[6]
To pass by the naked familiarity of his expressions to Horace, which
are cited in that author's life, I need only mention one notorious act
of his, in taking Livia to his bed, when she was not only married, but
with child by her husband then living. But deeds, it seems, may be
justified by arbitrary power, when words are questioned in a poet.
There is another guess of the grammarians, as far from truth as the
first from reason; they will have him banished for some favours,
which they say he received from Julia, the daughter of Augustus,
whom they think he celebrates under the name of Corinna in his
Elegies; but he, who will observe the verses which are made to that
mistress, may gather from the whole contexture of them, that
Corinna was not a woman of the highest quality. If Julia were then
married to Agrippa, why should our poet make his petition to Isis for
her safe delivery, and afterwards condole her miscarriage; which, for
aught he knew, might be by her own husband? Or, indeed, how
durst he be so bold to make the least discovery of such a crime,
which was no less than capital, especially committed against a
person of Agrippa's rank? Or, if it were before her marriage, he
would surely have been more discreet, than to have published an
accident which must have been fatal to them both. But what most
confirms me against this opinion, is, that Ovid himself complains,
that the true person of Corinna was found out by the fame of his
verses to her; which if it had been Julia, he durst not have owned;
and, beside, an immediate punishment must have followed. He
seems himself more truly to have touched at the cause of his exile in
those obscure verses:

Cur aliquid vidi? cur noxia lumina feci?

Cur imprudenti cognita culpa mihi est?
Inscius Actæon vidit sine veste Dianam,
Præda fuit canibus non minus ille suis.

Namely, that he had either seen, or was conscious to somewhat,

which had procured him his disgrace. But neither am I satisfied, that
this was the incest of the emperor with his own daughter: for
Augustus was of a nature too vindicative to have contented himself
with so small a revenge, or so unsafe to himself, as that of simple
banishment; but would certainly have secured his crimes from public
notice, by the death of him who was witness to them. Neither have
historians given us any sight into such an action of this emperor: nor
would he, (the greatest politician of his time,) in all probability, have
managed his crimes with so little secrecy, as not to shun the
observation of any man. It seems more probable, that Ovid was
either the confident of some other passion, or that he had stumbled,
by some inadvertency, upon the privacies of Livia, and seen her in a
bath: for the words

Sine veste Dianam,

agree better with Livia, who had the fame of chastity, than with
either of the Julias, who were both noted of incontinency. The first
verses, which were made by him in his youth, and recited publicly,
according to the custom, were, as he himself assures us, to Corinna:
his banishment happened not until the age of fifty; from which it
may be deduced, with probability enough, that the love of Corinna
did not occasion it: nay, he tells us plainly, that his offence was that
of error only, not of wickedness; and in the same paper of verses
also, that the cause was notoriously known at Rome, though it be
left so obscure to after-ages.[7]
But to leave conjectures on a subject so uncertain,[8] and to write
somewhat more authentic of this poet. That he frequented the court
of Augustus, and was well received in it, is most undoubted: all his
poems bear the character of a court, and appear to be written, as
the French call it, cavalierement: add to this, that the titles of many
of his elegies, and more of his letters in his banishment, are
addressed to persons well known to us, even at this distance, to
have been considerable in that court.
Nor was his acquaintance less with the famous poets of his age,
than with the noblemen and ladies. He tells you himself, in a
particular account of his own life, that Macer, Horace, Tibullus,[9]
Propertius, and many others of them, were his familiar friends, and
that some of them communicated their writings to him; but that he
had only seen Virgil.
If the imitation of nature be the business of a poet, I know no
author, who can justly be compared with ours, especially in the
description of the passions. And, to prove this, I shall need no other
judges than the generality of his readers: for, all passions being
inborn with us, we are almost equally judges, when we are
concerned in the representation of them. Now I will appeal to any
man, who has read this poet, whether he finds not the natural
emotion of the same passion in himself, which the poet describes in
his feigned persons. His thoughts, which are the pictures and results
of those passions, are generally such as naturally arise from those
disorderly motions of our spirits. Yet, not to speak too partially in his
behalf, I will confess, that the copiousness of his wit was such, that
he often writ too pointedly for his subject, and made his persons
speak more eloquently than the violence of their passion would
admit: so that he is frequently witty out of season; leaving the
imitation of nature, and the cooler dictates of his judgment, for the
false applause of fancy. Yet he seems to have found out this
imperfection in his riper age; for why else should he complain, that
his Metamorphoses was left unfinished? Nothing sure can be added
to the wit of that poem, or of the rest; but many things ought to
have been retrenched, which I suppose would have been the
business of his age, if his misfortunes had not come too fast upon
him. But take him uncorrected, as he is transmitted to us, and it
must be acknowledged, in spite of his Dutch friends, the
commentators, even of Julius Scaliger himself, that Seneca's censure
will stand good against him;

Nescivit quod bene cessit relinquere:

he never knew how to give over, when he had done well, but
continually varying the same sense an hundred ways, and taking up
in another place what he had more than enough inculcated before,
he sometimes cloys his readers, instead of satisfying them; and
gives occasion to his translators, who dare not cover him, to blush at
the nakedness of their father. This, then, is the allay of Ovid's
writings, which is sufficiently recompensed by his other excellencies:
nay, this very fault is not without its beauties; for the most severe
censor cannot but be pleased with the prodigality of his wit, though
at the same time he could have wished that the master of it had
been a better manager. Every thing which he does becomes him;
and if sometimes he appears too gay, yet there is a secret
gracefulness of youth, which accompanies his writings, though the
staidness and sobriety of age be wanting. In the most material part,
which is the conduct, it is certain, that he seldom has miscarried: for
if his Elegies be compared with those of Tibullus and Propertius, his
contemporaries, it will be found, that those poets seldom designed
before they writ; and though the language of Tibullus be more
polished, and the learning of Propertius, especially in his fourth
book, more set out to ostentation; yet their common practice was to
look no further before them than the next line; whence it will
inevitably follow, that they can drive to no certain point, but ramble
from one subject to another, and conclude with somewhat, which is
not of a piece with their beginning:

Purpureus latè qui splendeat, unus et alter

Assuitur pannus,——

as Horace says; though the verses are golden, they are but patched
into the garment. But our poet has always the goal in his eye, which
directs him in his race; some beautiful design, which he first
establishes, and then contrives the means, which will naturally
conduct him to his end. This will be evident to judicious readers in
his Epistles, of which somewhat, at least in general, will be
expected.
The title of them in our late editions is Epistolæ Heroidum, the
Letters of the Heroines. But Heinsius has judged more truly, that the
inscription of our author was barely, Epistles; which he concludes
from his cited verses, where Ovid asserts this work as his own
invention, and not borrowed from the Greeks, whom (as the masters
of their learning) the Romans usually did imitate. But it appears not
from their writings, that any of the Grecians ever touched upon this
way, which our poet therefore justly has vindicated to himself. I
quarrel not at the word Heroidum, because it is used by Ovid in his
Art of Love:

Jupiter ad veteres supplex Heroidas ibat.

But, sure, he could not be guilty of such an oversight, to call his

work by the name of Heroines, when there are divers men, or
heroes, as, namely, Paris, Leander, and Acontius, joined in it. Except
Sabinus, who writ some answers to Ovid's Letters,

(Quam celer è toto rediit meus orbe

Sabinus,)

I remember not any of the Romans, who have treated on this

subject, save only Propertius, and that but once, in his Epistle of
Arethusa to Lycotas, which is written so near the style of Ovid, that
it seems to be but an imitation; and therefore ought not to defraud
our poet of the glory of his invention.
Concerning the Epistles, I shall content myself to observe these few
particulars: first, that they are generally granted to be the most
perfect pieces of Ovid, and that the style of them is tenderly
passionate and courtly; two properties well agreeing with the
persons, which were heroines, and lovers. Yet, where the characters
were lower, as in Œnone and Hero, he has kept close to nature, in
drawing his images after a country life, though perhaps he has
romanized his Grecian dames too much, and made them speak,
sometimes, as if they had been born in the city of Rome, and under
the empire of Augustus. There seems to be no great variety in the
particular subjects which he has chosen; most of the Epistles being
written from ladies, who were forsaken by their lovers: which is the
reason that many of the same thoughts come back upon us in divers
letters: but of the general character of women, which is modesty, he
has taken a most becoming care; for his amorous expressions go no
further than virtue may allow, and therefore may be read, as he
intended them, by matrons without a blush.
Thus much concerning the poet: it remains that I should say
somewhat of poetical translations in general, and give my opinion,
(with submission to better judgments,) which way of version seems
to be the most proper.
All translation, I suppose, may be reduced to these three heads.
First, that of metaphrase, or turning an author word by word, and
line by line, from one language into another. Thus, or near this
manner, was Horace his Art of Poetry translated by Ben Jonson. The
second way is that of paraphrase, or translation with latitude, where
the author is kept in view by the translator, so as never to be lost,
but his words are not so strictly followed as his sense; and that too
is admitted to be amplified, but not altered. Such is Mr Waller's
translation of Virgil's fourth Æneid. The third way is that of imitation,
where the translator (if now he has not lost that name) assumes the
liberty, not only to vary from the words and sense, but to forsake
them both as he sees occasion; and, taking only some general hints
from the original, to run divisions on the ground-work, as he
pleases. Such is Mr Cowley's practice in turning two Odes of Pindar,
and one of Horace, into English.
Concerning the first of these methods, our master Horace has given
us this caution:

Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus

Interpres——

Nor word for word too faithfully translate;

as the Earl of Roscommon has excellently rendered it. Too faithfully

is, indeed, pedantically: it is a faith like that which proceeds from
superstition, blind and zealous. Take it in the expression of Sir John
Denham to Sir Richard Fanshaw, on his version of the Pastor Fido:

That servile path thou nobly dost decline,

Of tracing word by word, and line by line:
A new and nobler way thou dost pursue,
To make translations and translators too:
They but preserve the ashes, thou the
flame,
True to his sense, but truer to his fame.

It is almost impossible to translate verbally, and well, at the same

time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) often
expresses that in one word, which either the barbarity, or the
narrowness, of modern tongues cannot supply in more. It is
frequent, also, that the conceit is couched in some expression, which
will be lost in English:

Atque iidem venti vela fidemque ferent.

What poet of our nation is so happy as to express this thought
literally in English, and to strike wit, or almost sense, out of it?
In short, the verbal copier is encumbered with so many difficulties at
once, that he can never disentangle himself from all. He is to
consider, at the same time, the thought of his author, and his words,
and to find out the counterpart to each in another language; and,
besides this, he is to confine himself to the compass of numbers,
and the slavery of rhyme. It is much like dancing on ropes with
fettered legs: a man may shun a fall by using caution; but the
gracefulness of motion is not to be expected: and when we have
said the best of it, it is but a foolish task; for no sober man would
put himself into a danger for the applause of escaping without
breaking his neck. We see Ben Jonson could not avoid obscurity in
his literal translation of Horace, attempted in the same compass of
lines: nay, Horace himself could scarce have done it to a Greek poet:

Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio:

either perspicuity or gracefulness will frequently be wanting. Horace

has indeed avoided both these rocks in his translation of the three
first lines of Homer's Odyssey, which he has contracted into two:

Dic mihi, musa virum, captæ post tempora

Trojæ,
Que mores hominum multorum vidit, et
urbes.

Muse speak the man, who, since the siege

of Troy,
So many towns, such change of manners
saw.
Roscommon.

But then the sufferings of Ulysses, which are a considerable part of

that sentence, are omitted:
 Ὃς μάλα πολλὰ πλὰγχθη.

The consideration of these difficulties, in a servile, literal translation,

not long since made two of our famous wits, Sir John Denham,[10]
and Mr Cowley, to contrive another way of turning authors into our
tongue, called, by the latter of them, imitation. As they were friends,
I suppose they communicated their thoughts on this subject to each
other; and therefore their reasons for it are little different, though
the practice of one is much more moderate. I take imitation of an
author, in their sense, to be an endeavour of a later poet to write
like one, who has written before him, on the same subject; that is,
not to translate his words, or to be confined to his sense, but only to
set him as a pattern, and to write, as he supposes that author would
have done, had he lived in our age, and in our country.
Yet I dare not say, that either of them have carried this libertine way
of rendering authors (as Mr Cowley calls it) so far as my definition
reaches; for, in the Pindaric odes, the customs and ceremonies of
ancient Greece are still preserved. But I know not what mischief may
arise hereafter from the example of such an innovation, when
writers of unequal parts to him shall imitate so bold an undertaking.
To add and to diminish what we please, which is the way avowed by
him, ought only to be granted to Mr Cowley, and that too only in his
translation of Pindar; because he alone was able to make him
amends, by giving him better of his own, whenever he refused his
author's thoughts. Pindar is generally known to be a dark writer, to
want connection, (I mean as to our understanding,) to soar out of
sight, and leave his reader at a gaze. So wild and ungovernable a
poet cannot be translated literally; his genius is too strong to bear a
chain, and, Samson-like, he shakes it off. A genius so elevated and
unconfined as Mr Cowley's, was but necessary to make Pindar speak
English, and that was to be performed by no other way than
imitation.[11]
But if Virgil, or Ovid, or any regular intelligible authors, be thus used,
it is no longer to be called their work, when neither the thoughts nor
words are drawn from the original; but instead of them there is
something new produced, which is almost the creation of another
hand. By this way, it is true, somewhat that is excellent may be
invented, perhaps more excellent than the first design; though Virgil
must be still excepted, when that perhaps takes place. Yet he who is
inquisitive to know an author's thoughts, will be disappointed in his
expectation; and it is not always that a man will be contented to
have a present made him, when he expects the payment of a debt.
To state it fairly; imitation of an author is the most advantageous
way for a translator to shew himself, but the greatest wrong which
can be done to the memory and reputation of the dead. Sir John
Denham (who advised more liberty than he took himself) gives his
reason for his innovation, in his admirable preface before the
translation of the second Æneid. "Poetry is of so subtile a spirit, that,
in pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate;
and, if a new spirit be not added in the transfusion, there will remain
nothing but a caput mortuum." I confess this argument holds good
against a literal translation; but who defends it? Imitation and verbal
version are, in my opinion, the two extremes which ought to be
avoided; and therefore, when I have proposed the mean betwixt
them, it will be seen how far his argument will reach.
No man is capable of translating poetry, who, besides a genius to
that art, is not a master both of his author's language, and of his
own; nor must we understand the language only of the poet, but his
particular turn of thoughts and expression, which are the characters
that distinguish, and as it were individuate him from all other
writers. When we are come thus far, it is time to look into ourselves,
to conform our genius to his, to give his thought either the same
turn, if our tongue will bear it, or, if not, to vary but the dress, not to
alter or destroy the substance. The like care must be taken of the
more outward ornaments, the words. When they appear (which is
but seldom) literally graceful, it were an injury to the author that
they should be changed. But, since every language is so full of its
own proprieties, that what is beautiful in one, is often barbarous,
nay sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to
limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words: it is
enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the
sense. I suppose he may stretch his chain to such a latitude; but, by
innovation of thoughts, methinks, he breaks it. By this means the
spirit of an author may be transfused, and yet not lost: and thus it is
plain, that the reason alledged by Sir John Denham has no farther
force than to expression; for thought, if it be translated truly, cannot
be lost in another language; but the words that convey it to our
apprehension (which are the image and ornament of that thought,)
may be so ill chosen, as to make it appear in an unhandsome dress,
and rob it of its native lustre. There is, therefore, a liberty to be
allowed for the expression; neither is it necessary that words and
lines should be confined to the measure of their original. The sense
of an author, generally speaking, is to be sacred and inviolable. If
the fancy of Ovid be luxuriant, it is his character to be so; and if I
retrench it, he is no longer Ovid. It will be replied, that he receives
advantage by this lopping of his superfluous branches; but I rejoin,
that a translator has no such right. When a painter copies from the
life, I suppose he has no privilege to alter features, and lineaments,
under pretence that his picture will look better: perhaps the face,
which he has drawn, would be more exact, if the eyes or nose were
altered; but it is his business to make it resemble the original. In two
cases only there may a seeming difficulty arise; that is, if the
thought be notoriously trivial, or dishonest; but the same answer will
serve for both, that then they ought not to be translated:

——Et quæ
Desperes tractata nitescere posse, relinquas.

Thus I have ventured to give my opinion on this subject against the

authority of two great men, but I hope without offence to either of
their memories; for I both loved them living, and reverence them
now they are dead. But if, after what I have urged, it be thought by
better judges, that the praise of a translation consists in adding new
beauties to the piece, thereby to recompense the loss which it
sustains by change of language, I shall be willing to be taught
better, and to recant. In the mean time, it seems to me, that the
true reason why we have so few versions which are tolerable, is not
from the too close pursuing of the author's sense, but because there
are so few, who have all the talents which are requisite for
translation, and that there is so little praise, and so small
encouragement, for so considerable a part of learning.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Published in 8vo, in 1680. This version was made by several
hands. See introductory remarks on Dryden's Translations.
Johnson gives the following account of the purpose of Dryden's
preface:
"In 1680, the epistles of Ovid being translated by the poets of the
time, it was necessary (says Dr Johnson) to introduce them by a
preface; and Dryden, who on such occasions was regularly
summoned, prefixed a discourse upon translation, which was then
struggling for the liberty it now enjoys. Why it should find any
difficulty in breaking the shackles of verbal interpretation, which
must for ever debar it from elegance, it would be difficult to
conjecture, were not the power of prejudice every day observed.
The authority of Jonson, Sandys, and Holiday, had fixed the
judgement of the nation; and it was not easily believed that a
better way could be found than they had taken, though Fanshaw,
Denham, Waller, and Cowley, had tried to give examples of a
different practice."
[3] George Sandys' Translation of Ovid was published in folio, in
1626.
[4] Ovid was born in the year of Rome 711, and died in 771 of
the same æra.
[5] The poet himself plainly intimates as much in an epistle to
Fabius Maximus, where he represents himself as accusing Love of
being the cause of his exile:
O puer! exilii, decepto causa magistro.
The deity replies to this charge, by alluding to the secret cause of
his banishment, for which the loosness of his verses furnished
only an ostensible reason:
Juro
Nil nisi concessum nos te didicisse magistro,
Artibus et nullum crimen inesse tuis,
Utque hoc, sic utinam cetera defendere possis,
Scis aliud quod te læserit esse magis.
[6] Martial, lib. XI. epig. 21.
[7]
Causa meæ cunctis nimium quoque nota ruinæ,
Indicio non est testificanda meo.
[8] This curious and obscure subject is minutely investigated by
Bayle, who quotes and confutes the various opinions of the
learned concerning this point of secret history; and concludes,
like Dryden, by leaving it very much where he found it. Were I to
hazard a conjecture, I should rather think, with our poet, Ovid
had made some imprudent, and perhaps fortuitous discovery
relating to Livia.
[9] Dryden speaks inaccurately, from a general recollection of the
passage; for Ovid says distinctly, that the Fates did not give him
time to cultivate the acquaintance of Tibullus, any more than of
Virgil. The entire passage runs thus:
Temporis illius colui, fovique poetas:
Quotque aderant vates, rebar adesse deos.
Sæpe suas volucres legit mihi grandior ævo,
Quæque nocet serpens, quæ juvat herba, Macer.
Sæpe suos solitus recitare Propertius ignes,
Jure sodalitii qui mihi junctus erat.
Ponticus Heroo, Battus quoque clarus Iambo,
Dulcia convictus membra fuere mei.
Et tenuit nostras numerosus Horatius aures
Dum ferit Ausonia carmina culta lyra
Virgilium vidi tantum; nec avara Tibullo
Tempus amicitiæ fata dedere meæ.
Trist. Lib. IV. Eleg. 9.
[10] Sir John Denham gives his opinion on this subject in the
preface to "The Destruction of Troy;" which he does not venture
to call a translation, but "an Essay on the second book of Virgil's
Æneis."—"I conceive it is a vulgar error, in translating poets, to
affect being fidus interpres; let that care be with them who deal
in matters of fact, or matters of faith; but whosoever aims at it in
poetry, as he attempts what is not required, so he shall never
perform what he attempts: for it is not his business alone to
translate language into language, but poesy into poesy; and
poesy is of so subtile a spirit, that in the pouring out of one
language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be
not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a
caput mortuum, there being certain graces and happinesses
peculiar to every language, which give life and energy to the
words; and whosoever offers at verbal translation, shall have the
misfortune of that young traveller, who lost his own language
abroad, and brought home no other instead of it; for the grace of
the Latin will be lost by being turned into English words, and the
grace of the English by being turned into the Latin phrase."
[11] Cowley is now so undeservedly forgotten, that it is not
superfluous to insert his own excellent account of the free mode
of translation, prefixed to his translations from Pindar. "If a man
should undertake to translate Pindar, word for word, it would be
thought that one madman had translated another; as may
appear, when he that understands not the original, reads the
verbal traduction of him into Latin prose, than which nothing
seems more raving. And sure rhyme, without the addition of wit,
and the spirit of poetry, (quod nequeo monstrare et sentio
tantum,) would but make it ten times more distracted than it is in
prose. We must consider, in Pindar, the great difference of time
betwixt his age and ours, which changes, as in pictures, at least
the colours of poetry; the no less difference betwixt the religions
and customs of our countries, and a thousand particularities of
places, persons, and manners, which do but confusedly appear to
our eyes at so great a distance; and, lastly, (which were enough,
alone, for my purpose,) we must consider, that our ears are
strangers to the music of his numbers, which sometimes,
(especially in songs and odes,) almost without any thing else,
makes an excellent poet. For though the grammarians and critics
have laboured to reduce his verses into regular feet and
measures, (as they have also those of the Greek and Latin
comedies,) yet, in effect, they are little better than prose to our
ears: and I would gladly know what applause our best pieces of
English poesy could expect from a Frenchman or Italian, if
converted faithfully, and word for word, into French or Italian
prose. And when we have considered all this, we must needs
confess, that after all these losses sustained by Pindar, all we can
add to him by our wit and invention, (not deserting still his
subject,) is not like to make him a richer man than he was in his
own country. This is, in some measure, to be applied to all
translations; and the not observing of it is the cause, that all
which ever I yet saw are so much inferior to their originals. The
like happens, too, in pictures, from the same root of exact
imitation; which being a vile and unworthy kind of servitude, is
incapable of producing any thing good or noble. I have seen
originals, both in painting and poesy, much more beautiful than
their natural objects; but I never saw a copy better than the
original: which indeed cannot be otherwise; for men resolving in
no case to shoot beyond the mark, it is a thousand to one if they
shoot not short of it. It does not at all trouble me, that the
grammarians, perhaps, will not suffer this libertine way of
rendering foreign authors to be called translation; for I am not so
much enamoured of the name translator, as not to wish rather to
be something better, though it wants yet a name. I speak not so
much all this in defence of my manner of translating or imitating,
(or what other title they please,) the two ensuing odes of Pindar;
for that would not deserve half these words, as by this occasion
to rectify the opinion of divers men upon this matter."
 CANACE TO MACAREUS.

EPIST. XI.

THE ARGUMENT.

Macareus and Canace, son and daughter to Æolus, God of the

Winds, loved each other incestuously: Canace was delivered of
a son, and committed him to her nurse, to be secretly conveyed
away. The infant crying out, by that means was discovered to
Æolus, who, enraged at the wickedness of his children,
commanded the babe to be exposed to wild beasts on the
mountains; and withal, sent a sword to Canace, with this
message, That her crimes would instruct her how to use it. With
this sword she slew herself; but before she died, she writ the
following letter to her brother Macareus, who had taken
sanctuary in the temple of Apollo.

If streaming blood my fatal letter stain,

Imagine, ere you read, the writer slain;
One hand the sword, and one the pen
employs,
And in my lap the ready paper lies.
Think in this posture thou behold'st me
write;
In this my cruel father would delight.
O! were he present, that his eyes and
hands
Might see, and urge the death which he
commands!
Than all the raging winds more dreadful,
he,
Unmoved, without a tear, my wounds would
see.
Jove justly placed him on a stormy throne,
His people's temper is so like his own.
The north and south, and each contending
blast,
Are underneath his wide dominion cast:
Those he can rule; but his tempestuous
mind
Is, like his airy kingdom, unconfined.
Ah! what avail my kindred Gods above,
That in their number I can reckon Jove!
What help will all my heavenly friends
afford,
When to my breast I lift the pointed sword?
That hour, which joined us, came before its
time;
In death we had been one without a crime.
Why did thy flames beyond a brother's
move?
Why loved I thee with more than sister's
love?
For I loved too; and, knowing not my
wound,
A secret pleasure in thy kisses found;
My cheeks no longer did their colour boast,
My food grew loathsome, and my strength I
lost:
Still ere I spoke, a sigh would stop my
tongue;
Short were my slumbers, and my nights
were long.
I knew not from my love these griefs did
grow,
Yet was, alas! the thing I did not know.
My wily nurse, by long experience, found,
And first discovered to my soul its wound.
'Tis love, said she; and then my downcast
eyes,
And guilty dumbness, witnessed my
surprise.
Forced at the last my shameful pain I tell;
And oh, what followed, we both know too
well!
"When half denying, more than half
content,
Embraces warmed me to a full consent,
Then with tumultuous joys my heart did
beat,
And guilt, that made them anxious, made
them great."[12]
But now my swelling womb heaved up my
breast,
And rising weight my sinking limbs opprest.
What herbs, what plants, did not my nurse
produce,
To make abortion by their powerful juice!
What medicines tried we not, to thee
unknown!
Our first crime common; this was mine
alone.
But the strong child, secure in his dark cell,
With nature's vigour did our arts repel,
And now the pale faced empress of the
night
Nine times had filled her orb with borrowed
light;
Not knowing 'twas my labour, I complain
Of sudden shootings, and of grinding pain;
My throes came thicker, and my cries
increased,
Which with her hand the conscious nurse
suppressed.
To that unhappy fortune was I come,
Pain urged my clamours, but fear kept me
dumb.
With inward struggling I restrained my
cries,
And drunk the tears that trickled from my
eyes.
Death was in sight, Lucina gave no aid,
And even my dying had my guilt betrayed.
Thou cam'st, and in thy countenance sat
despair;
Rent were thy garments all, and torn thy
hair;
Yet feigning comfort, which thou couldst
not give,
Prest in thy arms, and whispering me to
live;
For both our sakes, saidst thou, preserve
thy life;
Live, my dear sister, and my dearer wife.
Raised by that name, with my last pangs I
strove;
Such power have words, when spoke by
those we love.
The babe, as if he heard what thou hadst
sworn,
With hasty joy sprung forward to be born.
What helps it to have weathered out one
storm!
Fear of our father does another form.
High in his hall, rocked in a chair of state,
The king with his tempestuous council sate;
Through this large room our only passage
lay,
By which we could the new-born babe
convey.
Swathed in her lap, the bold nurse bore him
out,
With olive branches covered round about;
And, muttering prayers, as holy rites she
meant,
Through the divided crowd unquestioned
went.
Just at the door the unhappy infant cried;
The grandsire heard him, and the theft he
spied.
Swift as a whirlwind to the nurse he flies,
And deafs his stormy subjects with his cries.
With one fierce puff he blows the leaves
away;
Exposed the self-discovered infant lay.
The noise reached me, and my presaging
mind
Too soon its own approaching woes divined.
Not ships at sea with winds are shaken
more,
Nor seas themselves, when angry tempests
roar,
Than I, when my loud father's voice I hear;
The bed beneath me trembled with my fear.